


If I Should Die Before I Wake

by Reiya



Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Angst, Attempts at historical accuracy, Backstory, Blood and Injury, Canon-Typical Violence, Crusades, Drowning, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Execution, Hurt/Comfort, Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani is an Incurable Romantic, M/M, Major Character Injury, Murder, POV Alternating, Period Typical Attitudes, Period-Typical Racism, Pre-Canon, Protective Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani, Protective Nicky | Nicolò di Genova, Religion, Temporary Character Death, Tenderness, War, a healthy dose of Catholic guilt, definitely some historical inaccuracy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-23
Updated: 2020-08-23
Packaged: 2021-03-06 14:14:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 16,315
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26070211
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Reiya/pseuds/Reiya
Summary: Joe and Nicky have watched each other die hundreds of times over the years. Death never changes but their reactions to it do
Relationships: Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova
Comments: 72
Kudos: 595





	If I Should Die Before I Wake

**Author's Note:**

> I would like to thank The Old Guard for taking over my brain and not letting me get any sleep until I wrote this fic

** 1099 **

The first time death comes for Yusuf, it comes swift and bloody at the end of Nicolò’s sword.

Later, much later, Nicolò will beg for his forgiveness and Yusuf will give it freely. At night he will hear Nicolò whispering the same prayer over and over again into the darkness, thanking their Creator for bringing Yusuf back. For correcting a mistake that Nicolò can never forgive himself for and will never allow himself to forget.

But Yusuf knows none of this the first time he meets his death. All he knows is the bitter stench of blood surrounding him, the merciless heat of the sun beating down on the battlefield and the screams and cries of dying men.

It is a miracle that he is still standing while so many of his comrades lie dead at his feet. At first, he had truly believed this was a battle that could be won. Now, with exhaustion draining the strength from his body and hopelessness forcing its way into his mind, Yusuf knows that they have lost. His brothers in arms have fallen all around him, cut down by the Frankish invaders without mercy. The enemy are still coming in seemingly endless hordes. Sweeping across the land like a plague and destroying everything in their path.

But still, Yusuf will fight. Even if the battle is lost, he will face death with no fear. He has heard tales of what the Franks do to those they capture and he refuses to meet the same fate. Instead he will die as a warrior, sword in hand. He can only hope that his body will be left in peace, not carved up and devoured by the monstrous Franks as it was said his fellow soldiers had been at Ma'arra.

Yusuf does not see death coming for him. Too busy battling his exhaustion and cutting down the invader in front of him to realise that the real threat is behind. It is only when he turns that he understands his mistake. One of the Franks has taken advantage of his unguarded back, sword already raised to strike. Yusuf frantically raises his own sword to block the blow, but he has no time to brace himself and the force of the hit throws him off balance. Before he can regain his footing the Frank has struck again, this time driving his sword into Yusuf’s unprotected chest.

For a moment, time freezes. Yusuf looks at the sword in his chest and then up at the man who wields it. At first, his enemy looks almost surprised, as if he had not expected to strike true. But then his expression closes off and he yanks the sword out of Yusuf’s body, the pain of it driving Yusuf to his knees.

The last thing he sees are the icy blue eyes of his killer, watching him as he falls.

* * *

_Two women with dark hair stand side by side, gazes fixed on the horizon. One wields an axe, the other a bow. They both hold themselves with the bearing of warriors. Although their faces are youthful, there is something ancient in their eyes._

_The man that killed him is staring down at Yusuf, sword still dripping red with Yusuf’s blood. His pale eyes sear themselves into Yusuf’s soul._

* * *

Yusuf gasps awake, the images still flashing before his eyes. When they fade, it is the blue of the sky that greets him. For a few seconds he can do nothing but stare, uncomprehending. Then his other senses begin to return to him. His mouth is filled with the metallic tang of blood, sharp and bitter. The cries of battle filter back to his ears, further away now but still close. 

Dragging himself upright, Yusuf fumbles with the hardened leather of his armour, trying to find the place where he had been struck. There is no pain to guide him, but Yusuf has heard stories of soldiers so caught up in battle that they do not feel pain from even the most grievous of wounds. Surely, he thinks to himself, that must be it. He had been struck by the Frank, but not fatally. The blow must have driven him to unconsciousness but not death. And now he has awoken, the frantic beating of his heart enough to mask the pain that he knows he had previously felt.

Finally, his fingers touch the gash in his armour and Yusuf presses down, expecting to finally feel pain. But there is nothing. Staring down at his chest, he sees the tear through his armour and the fabric beneath, in the exact place that he knows the invader impaled him. But there is no wound. The cloth around and the skin beneath are crusted with drying blood but his body is whole and unmarked.

Yusuf is miraculously, impossibly, unharmed.

It must be the will of Allah, Yusuf thinks, a little hysterically. For it could be nothing else. How else could he have taken a wound that by all rights should have killed him and yet awoken without even a scar. The Almighty must have brought him back for a purpose. Although what that purpose is, Yusuf does not know.

Staggering to his feet, he looks around and finds his sword lying in the bloody sand next to where he had fallen. The weight of it feels right in his hand, the first normal thing he has felt since waking up.

The battle has moved further away, although not by much. Yusuf had been lying with the bodies of dead men but the living are still close enough to see, the last of his fellow soldiers falling to enemy swords.

Yusuf takes off at a run, cutting down one invader before he even has the chance to see Yusuf coming. The next falls just as easily. Yusuf feels lighter, stronger than he has ever been. Allah, mighty and merciful, has not just healed Yusuf’s wound but given him new strength. Has stripped away the pain and exhaustion to leave Yusuf feeling as if he were stepping into battle again for the first time.

Another enemy falls to his blade and it is then that Yusuf spots him. The Frank who had killed him. Yusuf has seen that face in his dreams and now he can never forget it.

Before, the Frank had held the advantage but now it is Yusuf’s turn. As soon as their swords meet, he can see recognition bloom across the other man’s face, his eyes widening in shock. Yusuf takes advantage of the distraction, driving his enemy back. The man is fast, but Yusuf is faster, with new life and energy flowing through his body. His sword is lighter too, made for swift attacks while the Frankish weapons are heavy, designed to deal crushing blows. It had served the Frank well before, but it works against him now.

As soon as Yusuf sees an opening, he takes it. His sword whips through the air, too fast for his enemy to deflect. Yusuf feels nothing as his blade slices through the man’s throat, down to the bone.

He does not stay to watch him die.

* * *

_Two woman sit beside a campfire, their dark heads bowed together as they converse. Their expressions are solemn and serious. Something has happened, something important. It is written across every line of their faces._

_A man is fighting, swift and deadly. Nicolò knows his face, had stared at it as he died. The man’s armour is covered with flecks of blood and somehow, Nicolò knows that it is his own._

* * *

When Nicolò wakes, he knows that he must be in Hell.

Around him the heat of hellfire is pressing down, burning his skin and searing his lungs with every breath. The screams of the damned surround him and Nicolò wants to join them in their cries. When he had set out for the Holy Land, the Pope had promised all who undertook the journey the assurance of their place in the kingdom of heaven. But Nicolò knows that he must have failed the Lord, for he has died and this cannot be heaven. Instead he is forever damned, cut off from the glory of God’s light.

It feels like an age before he is able to open his eyes, dreading what he is going to see. But instead of Hell, he finds himself back on the battlefield, face pressed into the dirt that has grown red with his own blood. The heat is not hellfire but the unbearable heat of the desert sun and the screams are not damned souls but fellow soldiers fighting and dying.

Nicolò scrambles to his feet, hand flying to his neck. Where there should be nothing but severed flesh and bone there is instead skin, whole and unscarred. It is impossible. He knows with a terrible certainty that his throat had been cut by a man with the face of a dead Saracen. He can still feel the ghost of the blade as it carved its way through his neck. He remembers dying, choking on his own blood.

But now he is alive and whole. The aches in his muscles and the pain in his throat are gone. Even the red and peeling burns from the unforgiving sun have faded from his skin. He feels cleansed, as if the Lord has washed all his pain away and left him reborn.

Nicolò knows that this must be the Lord’s work. He must have been brought back for a reason, although the why of it eludes him. He knows it is not his place to question His plan, but Nicolò cannot help but wonder. Why him? There are men far more pious and holy to whom the blessing of a second chance at life has not been granted. Nicolò has tried to devote his life to the Lord but he has sinned, and he has doubted.

He had not doubted when he first became a solider of the Church, joining the war to reclaim the Holy Land in the name of Christ. The Pope had declared that it was God’s will that the Holy City be returned to Christian hands. And just as his father had sailed to Mahdia with the Pope’s blessing to burn the pagan fleet, so too had Nicolò taken up the call to carry out God’s will, as was expected of him.

But the longer he had fought, the less righteous he had felt. It might be blasphemy to question the divine infallibility of the Pope’s words, but nothing could stop the doubts from creeping into his mind. It was hard to feel holy on a battlefield surrounded by nothing but pain and death, or in a camp where starvation and sickness took as many lives as battle. Nicolò had prayed every night for guidance, for some kind of sign that he was truly on the right path.

And this must be the sign, for what else could it be? The Lord has not allowed him entry to the kingdom of heaven as punishment for his doubts. But neither has He condemned him to Hell. Instead He has returned Nicolò to the mortal world to take up arms again in the name of Christ, as penance for his sins.

Nicolò struggles to his feet, retrieving his sword and looking to where Christian soldiers and Saracens are still locked in battled. The Saracen numbers have dwindled, most lying dead or dying, strewn across the battlefield. But some are still fighting. Nicolo spots one in particular and feels a jolt of horrified recognition in his chest. It is the man that killed him. The one with the same face as the Saracen that Nicolò had cut down mere minutes before. He is fighting like a wild thing, felling Nicolò’s fellow soldiers with ease. For a moment, Nicolò thinks that he is beautiful. Then he forces the thought from his mind. Beautiful maybe, but deadly, with the light of hellfire in his eyes.

As Nicolò approaches, the Saracen turns and Nicolò can see the moment that recognition hits him. Shock and horror are written across his face and he whispers something in his own language that might be a prayer. Nicolò does not give him any more time to appeal to his false god. Instead he launches himself at his killer with his sword raised. There is new strength in his arms and new righteous purpose burning in his soul and he will not allow the Saracen to defeat him again.

The Saracen dodges his blow with the speed that had felled Nicolò the first time. But this time, he is ready for it. Swiftly he changes the angle of his attack, forcing the Saracen to meet his blade. For a few minutes they trade blows, testing each other’s defences. Nicolò finds that they are surprisingly evenly matched. His victory will not come easily but he knows that it will come. After all, surely God would not have brought him back just to die again at the hands of the same man?

The Saracen is just as determined as he is, driving Nicolò back with a series of rapid blows that he is barely able to block. His enemy ends his swift attack with a clever twist of his blade that yanks Nicolò’s own sword out of his hand. It clatters into the sand and Nicolò springs forward. Not towards his lost sword like he knows the Saracen expects, but towards the man himself. Kicking out, he sweeps the Saracen’s legs from under him, sending him crashing to the ground. The force of his back meeting the earth knocks the sword out of the Saracen’s hand and they both dive for it at the same time. The Saracen’s hand reaches the hilt first but, before he can turn the blade on Nicolò again, Nicolò lashes out. His foot meets flesh and he hears a pained cry and the sick crack of bone snapping.

It is clear that the Saracen’s sword arm is broken, twisted at a horrible angle. Nicolò sends up a quick prayer of thanks for his now inevitable victory. But before the prayer is even complete, the bones in his enemy’s arm shift before his very eyes. The twisted forearm straightens out, bones sliding back into place with a terrible grinding noise. In seconds it is whole again, as though Nicolò had not just snapped the limb clean in two.

He stares down at the man in horror. No, not a man. No man could do what Nicolò has just seen. It must be the work of some dark magic and the Saracen some kind of unholy creature.

He is so focused on the Saracen’s sword arm that he fails to see the other draw a dagger from a sheath at the man’s waist. Quick as a striking snake, the Saracen plunges his dagger into Nicolò’s leg, bringing him to his knees with a scream of pain. The Saracen uses Nicolò’s distraction to roll away, grabbing his sword and springing to his feet again. Nicolò reaches for his own sword, blinking back tears of pain at the agony in his leg. With his free hand he reaches down and yanks the dagger free with a snarl, flinging the blood-soaked blade away from him.

Instead of gushing blood as he expects, the wound ceases to bleed entirely. With his own eyes Nicolò sees the flesh of his leg knit back together, new skin stretching over the gash. The pain retreats too, fading away as his wound closes itself.

When he looks up in shock, he can see the Saracen watching him, eyes fixed on Nicolò’s leg. He spits something in his own language, staring at Nicolò. Then he attacks.

Nicolò raises his sword to meet the Saracen’s blade and their battle begins anew.

* * *

Yusuf does not know how long he has been fighting. The sun has set and risen again but he has long ago lost track of the individual hours. There is no time to rest. No time for food or sleep or even to breathe. There is only the battle, an endless, unwinnable fight.

They have both fought to exhaustion and have kept fighting. The rest of the battle has long since moved on and only they are left. No matter how many times Yusuf strikes the Frank down he simply rises again, faster and faster each time Yusuf kills him. Whenever Yusuf meets his own end, by sword or knife or the Frank’s bare hands, he too does not stay dead.

Yusuf is more tired than he has ever been in his life. Though he may be free from death, he is not free from pain or suffering. He groans as his abdomen knits itself back together, having been torn open minutes before by the Frank’s blade. The Frank himself lies dead beside him, Yusuf’s dagger embedded in one of his hauntingly pale eyes. Yusuf knows that he will not remain dead for much longer.

Just as expected, the other man jerks back to life with a wet gasp. Yusuf’s dagger clatters to the ground as it is forced from the Frank’s healing body. Yusuf tries to heave himself to his feet, but he only makes it to his knees before he is gasping for breath. Beside him, the Frank scrabbles to get up, but he has as little success as Yusuf. Their bodies heal but their minds still tire, and Yusuf cannot stand any more of this futile killing. Exhaustion clings to his soul and he knows that this cannot be the path Allah intends for him to follow.

The Frank sees him kneeling there and spits something in his own language. It sounds like a warning, or a threat, but Yusuf cannot be sure. He was a scholar long before he was a solider and has mastered many languages, but whatever tongue the Frank speaks is not one of them. When the other man sees that Yusuf is making no move to attack, he slumps down again in exhaustion, breathing heavily.

When Yusuf had first awoken, he had thought killing the invader who had slain him was the right path to take. Now he is not so sure. If Allah, all-knowing and all-wise, has brought Yusuf back time and time again, then maybe it is His will that Yusuf’s enemy also does not remain dead. They cannot be destined to be locked in an endless battle, killing and being killed for eternity. There must be some other purpose to the gift they both seem to have been given. What it is, Yusuf still does not know. But he is determined to find out.

Yusuf reaches for his sword and the Frank jerks back, grasping for his own weapon. Yusuf can see the anger in his eyes, but also the fear. The Frank does not wish to keep fighting and dying any more than Yusuf does.

Yusuf holds up his sword very deliberately, maintaining eye contact with the other man. Then he tosses his blade away, making his meaning as clear as he can without words. The Frank looks wary for a second. But then he lowers his own sword, eyes still fixed on Yusuf.

“No more,” Yusuf says, first in Arabic and then, when it is clear the Frank does not understand, in Sabir. “No more. Peace.”

As he had hoped, the Frank seems to at least partially understand the trading language because he nods, mimicking the word.

“Peace.”

Yusuf places a hand to his own chest.

“My name is Yusuf.”

“Yusuf,” the Frank repeats, slowly, as if he is tasting the word on his tongue. Then he gestures to himself.

“Nicolò.”

* * *

** 1099 **

Yusuf watches Nicolò intently as they make camp for the evening. It has been weeks since they stumbled off the battlefield together, swords still crusted with each other’s blood. Ever since then they have been travelling together, tied by the strange bond of their mutual immortality and a fragile truce.

Nicolò looks different now. He is dressed in local garb and his armour is long gone, although his longsword remains. Both his and Yusuf’s clothing and armour were shredded by the time they finally laid down their weapons and they had both disposed of the rags as soon as they could. But it is not just the clothes that make Nicolò look different. His face is softer now and his posture more relaxed. For the first few weeks of their journey, he had regarded Yusuf with extreme wariness, sword never far from his hand. When it became clear that Yusuf was not intending to slit his throat while he slept and flee into the night, he began to relax in increments.

Yusuf is sure that Nicolò still does not trust him yet, and he does not trust Nicolò either. But slowly, as the weeks trickle by, a wary sort of camaraderie has begun to develop between them.

As Yusuf watches, Nicolò finishes his evening preparations and settles down. He looks exhausted. Yusuf knows without words that the weeks of travel have worn him down. He is not used to the heat of the Judean desert, although he is far too proud to complain. Yusuf had taken pity on him a few days into their journey, after seeing burns continuously appear and heal across Nicolò’s exposed skin, and taught him how to properly wrap his head to protect it from the worst of the sun. But nothing can block out the searing heat.

Today, Yusuf had wanted to push on and keep walking into the night. The tiredness from their journey means nothing to him when all he cares about is avoiding any encounters with the groups of Frankish invaders scattered throughout the lands. But when, for the first time, Nicolò had suggested in a mixture of broken Sabir and hand gestures that they rest early for the evening, Yusuf had agreed. There was no use walking his companion to death, even if that death would not be permanent.

More than anything, he wants to ask why Nicolò continues to follow him. He knows his own reasons for keeping the Frank close. There is a reason Allah has put Nicolò in his path, the only other man who cannot stay dead. They must be alive for a purpose and Yusuf will tolerate the Frank’s presence until he discovers what that purpose is. But he has no idea if Nicolò is travelling with him for the same reason or for another.

The lack of communication is endlessly frustrating. He has figured out that Nicolò speaks one of the Ligurian dialects and it bears enough similarity to Sabir that they can speak in its most basic form. But there is still so much they cannot say.

Shaking off the thoughts, Yusuf stands. The sun has slipped below the horizon as they made camp and the time for the Maghrib prayer has come. He can feel eyes following him as he prepares and when he turns around, Nicolò is watching him. It is not unexpected. The Frank seems strangely fascinated by Yusuf’s prayers. He always keeps his distance but watches closely. At first it unnerved Yusuf, but he has grown accustomed to it. He has seen Nicolò pray too, in the Christian way, but he has seen plenty of Christians pray before in his lifetime. But from Nicolò’s strangely intense observation, he wonders if he is the first Muslim Nicolò has ever seen at prayer.

The night is silent as Yusuf falls into the familiar rhythm of prayer, the communication with Allah soothing his mind in the way nothing else can. For a while, there is peace. But as he finishes the last of the rakats, the silence and peace are abruptly broken.

In the distance there is the faint sound of movement, hoofbeats against the desert sand. Then voices come drifting through the darkness, harsh and grating. They speak in a language Yusuf does not understand but recognises instantly.

Franks. A group of soldiers, all heading towards him.

The sound of a sword being drawn echoes from behind him and Yusuf whips around to see Nicolò standing there, blade unsheathed. His eyes are fixed on the horizon where the sounds of the men draw closer and his expression is unreadable.

Yusuf feels a stab of betrayal sear hotly through his chest. He has no right to feel it, he knows. He should have expected this. Nicolò is one of the Franks, the enemy who came to this country to murder and destroy in the name of their god. Yusuf never should have lost sight of that. But he had still foolishly let himself believe that the other man was, at the very least, honourable enough to respect their truce. Had thought that the long weeks that they had spent together and their shared gift had made them wary allies in their quest to discover the purpose to their immortality.

But now he realises how foolish that was. He knew the destruction the Franks wrought, had seen it with his own eyes. They had no concept of honour, nor of mercy. Nicolò was no different and Yusuf never should have let his defences down low enough to convince himself otherwise.

And now he is trapped. It suddenly makes sense, why Nicolò asked that they rest early and picked this place to camp. He must have been laying down a trap that Yusuf was foolish enough to walk straight into, after weeks of lulling Yusuf into a false sense of security. Conspiring with his fellow Franks to ambush them here. Yusuf had not seen him sneak off to find his fellow soldiers, but he is only human and has not been watching Nicolò every hour of the day. The hours he slept would have given Nicolò enough time.

Nicolò approaches him, sword in hand but not yet raised, and Yusuf flinches back. Just because he cannot be killed does not mean he cannot be hurt. And he has no desire to find out what the Franks do to prisoners who are unable to die.

Nicolò opens his mouth to speak as the hoofbeats grow louder and Yusuf does the only thing he can think to do. Yanking his dagger out of his belt, he drives it as hard as he can into Nicolò’s unprotected chest.

Nicolò staggers back, looking, of all things, surprised. His sword slips from limp fingers and Yusuf thinks distantly that he never managed to raise it. Nicolò’s other hand touches his chest, the front of his tunic already slick with blood. His legs give out from under him and he falls to his knees, swaying as his life trickles away.

The voices grow nearer still and Yusuf knows he only has minutes before Nicolò shakes off the stab wound like anyone else would shake off a flea bite. So he turns and flees into the desert, forcing himself to not look back.

* * *

It takes less than an hour for Nicolò to find to him. Yusuf is not surprised. He knew his dagger would buy him minutes at best and Nicolò is quick on his feet, much swifter now that he has no armour weighing him down.

What he is surprised about is that Nicolò comes alone. There are no hordes of other Franks with him like Yusuf expected. But he is sure they will not be far behind.

As Nicolò approaches, Yusuf drops into a defensive stance, hands flying to his sword. Instead of drawing his own blade, Nicolò takes a step back, raising his hands to show he is holding no weapons.

“You lead them to me,” Yusuf hisses in Arabic, chest still stinging with the betrayal. When Nicolò’s brows furrow in confusion he switches to Sabir. “Your people. You could not kill me, so you lead them here to capture me instead.”

Nicolò’s Sabir is terrible but he must understand enough because his eyes widen at Yusuf’s words and he shakes his head.

“No!”

Yusuf looks at him sceptically.

“I…” Nicolò appears frustrated, struggling with the words. Not for the first time, Yusuf wishes that they shared at least one full language in common.

“They are…not mine,” Nicolò finishes, looking at Yusuf imploringly. “I did not know.”

There is true honesty in Nicolò’s eyes. It is so unexpected that Yusuf looks closer, expecting to see some sign of deception on Nicolò’s face. But there is none. He knows that he should not believe it, not when an hour ago he thought that Nicolò was luring him to capture or worse. But Yusuf finds that he does. There is no hint of dishonesty on Nicolò’s face or in his words, and no army of Franks have appeared out of the darkness to drag Yusuf away.

And Nicolò had not raised his sword, Yusuf reminds himself. He had drawn it, perhaps an instinctive reaction to the sound of strangers in the night, but he had not raised it against Yusuf. Nor did he raise it now, even after Yusuf had stabbed him and run.

Warily, Yusuf sheathes his own blade, seeing relief flit across Nicolò’s face. Together, they walk back to their camp. It is undisturbed, the few items they have manged to scavenge in the weeks they have been together untouched. There are no footprints in the sand except for their own, the ground undisturbed except for the pool of dried blood shining black in the moonlight. The night is quiet but for the sounds of the desert.

When no Franks jump out from the shadows, Yusuf feels the last vestiges of fear drain from his body. Nicolò was telling the truth. The Franks have passed them by unnoticed, seemingly unaware that one of their own and one of their enemies were so near.

Together the two of them sit, closer than they ever have before. Nicolò usually keeps his distance but this time he seems to make a point of sitting within arm’s reach. A show of trust perhaps?

Yusuf looks at him, noticing, a little guiltily, how Nicolò’s blood still stains the front of his tunic. There is a hole in the fabric where Yusuf’s dagger had entered. Without thinking, he raises his hand to trace the skin beneath, miraculously whole and unmarked. Nicolò’s chest is warm beneath his fingertips and Yusuf realises suddenly that it is the first time either of them have ever touched the other without violence.

“I’m sorry,” he tells Nicolò, his hand resting on the spot where the wound once was.

Warm fingers cover his own and when Yusuf looks up, there is the beginnings of a smile dancing on Nicolò’s lips. He says something in Ligurian and, even though Yusuf does not understand the nuances of the words, he understands their overall meaning. He is forgiven.

They spend the rest of the night in comfortable silence, and Yusuf can feel the first fragile bond of trust begin to grow between them.

* * *

** 1110 **

When Nicolò di Genova sailed off to the Holy Land, he had expected one of two things to happen. Either he would return home when the war was won, or he would die on the battlefield and be welcomed into the kingdom of heaven.

What he had not expected was that, long after the war was over, he would be neither home in Genova nor lying dead on a battlefield (at least not permanently). In fact, if someone had told his younger self that he would instead be traveling through the very lands he had come to wage war in with a Saracen by his side, he would have laughed in their face. If someone had told him he would be travelling with a Saracen whose company he treasured above all else, he would have declared their insanity at such an impossibility.

But many impossible things have happened to him between sailing off to the Holy Land and now. 

It had taken a long time for him to consider Yusuf as anything other than a threat. When he had followed Yusuf off the battlefield, he had trusted that the Lord had a plan for him and that it would reveal itself in time. And he had trusted that the plan must involve Yusuf somehow. But what he had not trusted was Yusuf himself.

As a child, he had heard tales of the Saracens. Stories of how they were ungodly, soulless creatures who worshiped false gods and were the enemies of all things good and Christian. On the ships to the Holy Land, the other Genoese soldiers had recounted gruesome stories of what the Saracens did to any soldiers they captured. How they forced Christians into blasphemy for their own entertainment before slitting their throats at the alters of their false god. Nicolò had been horrified and had prayed that night to be given the strength to either defeat such demons or die before he fell into their clutches.

Then he had fallen into one of their clutches, so to speak, and none of the horrors had happened. Not even close. Yusuf may have spoken a strange language and prayed in a strange manner but nothing else about him had been what Nicolò had expected. In fact, he was a better travel companion than Nicolò’s fellow soldiers had been, since he was neither drunk nor violent.

The longer he travelled with Yusuf, the more Nicolò began to realise that the things he had been told were lies. Just soldier’s rumours, designed to terrify and enrage. But it was not just the soldiers who had lied to him. When the other priests had spoken of the Saracens, they had sworn they were the enemy of all things Christian. That they had no soul.

But Nicolò had seen the way Yusuf gave away his food to the hungry, even when he had little to give. How he could bring a smile to the face of anyone he met, no matter how low their spirits. How he could capture the beauty of any object with charcoal on paper, or even sometimes with sticks in the sand when he had no other way to draw. How patient he was as he taught Nicolò Arabic, and how much he delighted in learning Ligurian in return. How the kindness in his heart shone through and how beautiful he sounded when he laughed.

God could not have created such a man without a soul. For, of all the men Nicolò has met during his lifetime, Yusuf is the best of them.

Wariness had turn to trust and, little by little, trust had turned to friendship. Until one day, Nicolò realised that he no longer followed Yusuf purely out of his obligation to the Lord, but because he wanted nothing more than to remain by Yusuf’s side. Now it fills him with a terrible guilt, to think of the beliefs he once held and how utterly and despicably wrong he was.

“What are you thinking about, that has turned your face so serious?”

Yusuf’s voice cuts through his musings, light and teasing. He speaks in Ligurian, having mastered the language much faster than Nicolò mastered Arabic. Nicolò is not one to often fall to the sin of envy, but he does occasional wish longingly that he had Yusuf’s talent for languages.

“Nothing,” he shrugs, and Yusuf raises an eyebrow.

“You are never thinking about nothing Nicolò,” he jokes, voice still light-hearted. “I have known you to be many things, but never empty-headed.”

“Maybe I am thinking about how much quieter this journey would be if I were to rid myself of a talkative companion,” Nicolò jokes back, knowing that Yusuf will not take the words seriously. They have long since passed the point where every mark was a concealed barb and have settled comfortably into casual teasing.

Yusuf presses a hand to his chest dramatically.

“You wound me,” he cries, in clearly fake distress. “And you lie, you would be terribly bored on the road without me.”

“Perhaps,” Nicolò concedes, feeling a smile tug at the corners of his mouth.

“Even if you would not, you still cannot afford to be rid of me,” Yusuf adds, grinning back. “Your Arabic still needs improvement and you wouldn’t last a week alone with no-one else able to understand your accent.”

“I thought you said you liked my accent.”

“I do,” Yusuf’s expression softens, eyes crinkling at the corners. “But I have had plenty of time to grow to fully appreciate it.”

Nicolò is about to reply when Yusuf’s eyes sharpen. He makes a quick gesture, urging Nicolò to stay silent and Nicolò does, trusting Yusuf’s instinct implicitly. As silence falls, he hears what had put Yusuf on his guard. The faintest sounds of movement, the shuffling of feet and the whisper of fabric against skin. Quiet enough that it would go unnoticed by anyone who was not alert and wary of the dangers of the road.

The path they are travelling is surrounded by steep hills, teeming with shrubs and rocks that offer many perfect places to hide. It is an ideal spot for an ambush, Nicolò thinks. It will not be the first time the two of them have encountered bandits while travelling. The world is full of desperate men and those willing to prey on the weak. Two men alone on the road often look like easy pickings for those who make their living through thievery. There is no way of knowing what a terrible mistake attacking either he or Yusuf is until the mistake has already been made.

Just as Nicolò expected, men begin to emerge in front of him, blocking their way forward. When he turns to look, more men have appeared behind, blocking the path of retreat. Next to him, Yusuf sighs.

The leader of the groups calls out something in Arabic, too fast for Nicolò to understand. The locals here use a dialect very different to the Derja that Yusuf has taught him, but it does not take a genius to understand that the words are a threat.

Yusuf answers back, voice deceptively friendly. Nicolò knows that Yusuf would much rather convince these men to walk away than fight. But at the first sign of violence he will draw his sword, too fast for any of these men to realise their grave mistake.

While Yusuf deals with their leader, Nicolò takes the opportunity to look around and assess the rest of the group. None of the men hold themselves like soldiers. Their armour is mismatched and their swords are poorly cared for and likely stolen. Even without their shared healing gift, Nicolò would not consider these men much of a threat.

When he turns his attention back to Yusuf, his companion is looking frustrated. Clearly he has failed to dissuade the leader of the bandits from making a monumentally stupid decision. The leader spits something that Nicolò is pretty sure is insulting to both Yusuf and his family and then the sound of swords being drawn fills the air.

Yusuf flicks a glance over to him and Nicolò nods, almost imperceptibly. They move at the same time. Yusuf darts forward to intercept the men in front of them and Nicolò spins around to deal with the ones at their back.

It is not a hard fight. The men are untrained, clearly more used to preying on unsuspecting travellers with nothing more deadly than a knife to defend themselves. Most of them never even get close to him, cut down long before their blades make contact. The only injury Nicolò takes is a thin slice to his arm, barely a scratch. He does not bother looking at it, knowing that it will be healed before he has the chance.

It takes very little time for the bandits to realise they are outmatched. The remaining few turn and run rather than facing his sword and he lets them leave. He has no desire to kill retreating men. When he turns to look at Yusuf, he too has dispatched the last of his attackers, allowing the rest to flee back into the hills.

Yusuf opens his mouth to speak, but the words are cut off by a horrible choking noise. Nicolò cries out in dismay at the sight of an arrow suddenly protruding from Yusuf’s neck, the tip glistening red with blood. There is a flash of movement from behind Yusuf and Nicolò sees the previously hidden archer fleeing, bow in hand.

With a snarl of rage, he gives chase. The man is fast, darting up the steep incline of the surrounding hills to safety. But he is not fast enough. Nicolò yanks his dagger out of his belt and throws it, catching the man in the back as he scrambles away. The archer cries and falls, tumbling back down the slope to rest at Nicolò’s feet. Nicolò kicks his bow away, watching as the man writhes in pain. The dagger has wounded him but not killed him. Nicolò watches him for a second, thinking of the way the arrow ripped through Yusuf’s throat. Then he raises his sword and brings it down hard, driving the blade through the archer’s heart.

In seconds he is back at Yusuf’s side, not even bothering to wipe down his blade. His companion is lying in the dust, a puddle of red spreading rapidly beneath him. Nicolò falls to his knees, grabbing the arrow and yanking it out of Yusuf’s throat. Then he waits, starting imploringly at the wound. Silently begging for it to close.

For a horrible second, nothing happens.

It is the first time either of them have died by any hand but each other’s. It feels wrong somehow, like a perversion of the natural order. Icy hands of fear grip Nicolò’s throat as he realises that neither of them know how far their protection extends. If it protects them from all manner of deaths, or only deaths dealt by each other’s hands. His fingers find Yusuf’s throat and he presses down on the wound, as if he can close it by force alone.

“You cannot leave me,” he begs in Ligurian. Then switches to Arabic, as if simply hearing his native tongue will be enough to draw Yusuf back to the mortal world. “Come back to me.”

There is movement beneath his hands and suddenly Yusuf gasps awake, jerking upright so fast their foreheads almost collide. Nicolò slumps back, relief flooding through him.

“I thought you were gone,” he says, the words tumbling out of his mouth before the rational part of his mind has the chance to catch up.

“You cannot rid yourself of me that easily,” Yusuf jokes, voice hoarse as the wound finally fades.

Tension floods out of Nicolò’s body like a wave and he helps Yusuf to his feet. Together they collect and clean their weapons before continuing on their path. Nicolò finds he cannot help but steal glances at Yusuf every few minutes, needing to reassure himself that Yusuf is fine. He is sure Yusuf notices but, blessedly, he does not comment on it.

That night, when Nicolò slips away to pray, he changes his usual prayer. Normally he prays for guidance, for clarity or for forgiveness. But this night, and for all the nights after, he asks for only one thing.

_“Lord, I beg of Thee. Do not take him from me. Give me the strength to protect him. And if I should fail, keep him safe when I cannot. Please let him return to me.”_

* * *

** 1135 **

“Do you ever miss Genova?”

Nicolò looks over at him in surprise at the unexpected question.

“No,” he replies without hesitation, and Yusuf’s heart warms at the sincerity in Nicolò’s words.

It has been a worry plaguing him for years now, as time slips away from them like grains of sand in an hourglass. That one day Nicolò would grow tired of travelling with him. Would choose to return to the home he left so long ago.

“Even if I did, I could not return,” Nicolò adds, although there is no sadness in his words. “Anyone who knew me then will think me long dead. It would be hard to explain my miraculous survival, or why I still look as young as the day I left. They would probably brand me as a deserter and accuse me of selling my soul for some kind of dark magic.”

He has a point, Yusuf thinks. Though the passing of the years has changed many things, the youthfulness of their faces is not one of them. It had dawned on them both several years ago that, just as death seemed not to touch them, neither did age. It was one of the reasons he too had never considered returning home to Mahdia. Though none of his family are left now, there are still enough people that knew him as a young man who would question his lack of aging should he ever choose to return.

“That may be so,” Yusuf replies. “But you truly miss none of it?”

He does not know why he keeps pushing the question, only that he has to know for sure. When he had first met Nicolò, he had thought being forced to travel with him was a curse. Now he knows that it is a blessing. It may have taken them both a long time, but now there is no-one he wants more by his side.

“No. Back in Genova my life - my world - was…”

Nicolò hesitates, as if searching for the right words.

“…small. Now it is so much larger and, because of you, I see it with new eyes. I have no desire to go back and be reminded of who I was then.”

Something warm settles in Yusuf’s chest at the admission. He cannot imagine his life without Nicolò, after spending so many years in his company. First as enemies, then as wary allies, then as friends. And now as…more. Closer than friends, closer than brothers. Yusuf would happily spend the rest of his immortal life with Nicolò by his side.

A call from behind them interrupts his musings and they both turn in unison. Behind them, the group of wagons they have been hired to protect has stopped. A few of the men are leaning over one of the wheels, which is now stuck in a rut in the road. With a sigh, Yusuf heads over to help, Nicolò following behind him.

“It is a good thing we cannot grow old,” he mutters to Nicolò in Ligurian, to avoid being overheard. “Because at the pace these traders travel, we would die of old age before we ever reach Cairo.”

Nicolò snorts next to him, but does not comment.

Neither of them like taking jobs as hired swords, but the pay is good and it is one of the few ways to make money while traveling. Yusuf would prefer to settle down in one place permanently, but lingering for too long anywhere is dangerous. They had spent a few years in Damascus, then many more in Baghdad. After that they had settled down in Constantinople, where they had stayed happily for a while. But eventually they were forced to move on, lest their secret be discovered. Now they are winding their way slowly down towards Cairo. Yusuf had spent some time there as a young man and remembers it fondly.

He also hopes that perhaps somewhere, in the great halls of knowledge at Cairo’s grand university, they may find the answers that they both still seek. The purpose of their gift still remains as much of a mystery to them now as it was the day they first discovered it. Neither of their prayers for guidance have yet been answered. So they travel and they search and they try to do good where they can, hoping that one day they will know for sure why they, and no other, have been blessed with eternal life.

There is also the mystery of the dreams. The two women who appear to them in their sleep. Warriors both, as beautiful and terrifying as wildfire. Neither of them know if the women are real or simply a vision meant to convey a message from the Almighty. If it is meant to be a message, neither of them have been able to comprehend its meaning. And if they are real, then he and Nicolò have so far been unsuccessful at finding them. The world is large and neither of them know where to look.

Yusuf thinks on the women as he helps haul the wheel of the cart out of the rut it has jammed itself in. When it is finally free, the group set off again. He walks at the front, scouting ahead for any danger. There has been none so far, but the traders are right to be careful. The luxurious spices and silks they carry are tempting targets for any bandits lurking on the road.

It is unlikely that bandits will attack them here though. The road they are travelling on runs through a gorge. Steep walls loom on either side and the path runs straight. The slopes are rocky and treacherous, leaving no place to safely hide.

Yusuf hears the danger before he sees it.

There is a dull crash, the sound of stone striking stone. Then a horrible grinding sound that can only mean one thing. Yusuf’s heart sinks into his boots as he whips around to face the noise and sees that he is right. One of the rocks on the cliff face has broken away, taking others with it as it tumbles down the slope. Before he can blink there is a cascade of rocks heading towards him, faster than he can flee.

This, Yusuf thinks, is not going to be a pleasant way to die.

Then the solid weight of a body hits him, forcing the air out of his lungs. He flies forward, landing hard. Pain erupts in his head as it connects with the ground and he can feel dirt and grit scrap itself into his palms as he tries futilely to break his fall.

Wincing, he rolls over, knowing the cuts on his hands and face will already be healing. For a moment his vision swims, then clears. In front of him there is a jagged pile of rocks lying where he was just standing. And under them, a painfully familiar shape.

“NICOLÒ!”

Yusuf scrambles over to the rockpile, hurling stones out of the way until Nicolò’s body is free. With the rocks gone, the full extent of his injuries become clear and Yusuf temporarily forgets how to breathe.

They have both been injured many times, but never like this. An entire half of Nicolò’s ribcage is caved in, exposing a mess of bone and flesh beneath. His face, once so beautiful, has been crushed beyond all recognition.

Yusuf thinks he is going to be sick.

Frantic cries are coming from the group of traders, far enough behind on the path that they have not been touched by the falling rocks. Some look as though they are about to come and help and Yusuf flings out a hand, motioning for them to stop.

“It is too dangerous,” he calls shakily, shifting his body so that Nicolò is out of view. None of the traders can be allowed to see him like this. It will be impossible to pretend Nicolò has miraculously escaped with nothing but a concussion if anyone sees his body as it is now.

Yusuf rests a hand over Nicolò’s heart, needing to know the exact second it begins to beat again. Already, his ribs are knitting together and the bones of his face are shifting gruesomely, pulling themselves back into alignment. Yusuf grits his teeth, counting each painful second until he feels the thump of a heartbeat beneath his palm.

Nicolò gasps awake, eyes immediately slamming shut again from the pain. He groans, one hand coming up to flutter weakly against where his chest is still slowly pulling itself back together. Yusuf reaches out and grips the hand in reassurance, throat too choked up for words. Nicolò blinks his eyes open and his lips form the shape of Yusuf’s name.

It takes an agonizingly long time for the wounds to completely heal. Each second is like a nightmare and only when there is nothing marking Nicolò’s skin but blood and dust does Yusuf finally breathe easy.

It does not take long for the relief to turn to anger.

“ _Why_?” he hisses, gripping Nicolò’s shoulders so hard that his knuckles turn white. “Why did you do that?”

Nicolò stares at him uncomprehendingly.

“The rocks would have killed you,” he says, as if that answers everything.

“Instead they killed you, is that supposed to somehow be _better_?”

Yusuf knows how furious he sounds but he cannot stop. The heart-wrenching terror of seeing Nicolò beneath the rocks has left him shaking and unmoored.

“I cannot bear to see you die.”

Nicolò’s words are soft and he reaches up as he speaks, laying his palm against Yusuf’s cheek. Yusuf covers it with his own hand.

“I would rather die a thousand deaths than be forced to watch you die a single one.”

Nicolò opens his mouth to reply but Yusuf cuts him off, crushing their mouths together and kissing Nicolò like their lives depend on it. They have never kissed before, but it feels so right that Yusuf cannot bring himself to stop. Nicolò jolts beneath him and then kisses back, matching Yusuf’s passion with a fire of his own. His hands twine into Yusuf’s hair, bringing them impossibly closer. Their bodies press together, until Yusuf can feel the steady beat of Nicolò’s heart against his own chest.

When they finally break apart, Yusuf rests his forehead against Nicolò’s own, their breaths mingling together in the space between them.

“Please never do that again,” he begs. “I cannot bear to lose you.”

“I cannot promise to not protect you,” Nicolò tells him, voice soft. “But you will not lose me. I will always return to you.”

It is enough.

* * *

** 1191 **

If there was one part of his history that Nicolò never wanted to repeat, it was the crusades. But now here he is, in the Christian’s camp at Acre and hating every minute of it.

After more than a lifetime spent by Yusuf’s side, memories of his history as a crusader fill him with a deep shame and guilt that he knows he will never truly be free from. No amount of penance will ever fully cleanse the blood from his hands, although he tries regardless. Tries to save as many lives as he can, to put as much good into the world as he is able to, to pay for what he once was. But no matter what he does, he still wakes in the middle of the night, pale and shaking, dreams full of the memories he will never be able to forget.

Every day, he thanks God for the second chance he has been given. Without divine intervention, he would have died on that blood-soaked battlefield nearly a hundred years ago, on the wrong side of history. Instead he was given a chance to pay for his sins. Gifted with a body that could never truly die, so he could protect those who could. His own injuries and deaths were fair payment for the lives he had taken and the pain he had caused. Blood for blood.

It is because of his gift that Nicolò is back under the guise of a crusader now, with very different intentions than he had the last time.

He and Yusuf had been living in Mahdia when the rumours of yet another crusade reached their ears. After so long as a Crusader city, Jerusalem had been taken by the armies of Salah ad-Din and returned to Muslim hands. It was said Pope Urban III had collapsed and died at the news of the Christian’s loss at Hatti and, when Jerusalem too fell, his successor called for a new crusade to retake the Holy Land.

The thought sickened Nicolò and at first he hoped this new call to crusade would be a short lived folly, just as the last one forty years ago had been. That one had achieved very little and culminated with a humiliating retreat by the Crusaders from Damascus.

But as time ticked on, it became clear this time would be different. The Holy City was no longer in Christian hands, prompting outcry all across Europe. First the Holy Roman Emperor took up the cross, then the Kings of England and France. All swearing to return Jerusalem to Christian rule.

In the end, there was no choice for them but to go. Once, he had been one of those Crusaders, so full of religious fervour and righteousness that it had taken him years to see how truly, terribly wrong he had been. He could not ignore the chance to right some of those wrongs now that history was repeating itself.

Which was how he ended up where he was now, stuck in the Christian camp outside the walls of Acre as the siege of the city dragged on.

It had been Yusuf’s idea that they take up positions on opposing sides. They couldn’t stop the war outright, they were only two men after all. But they could do their best to save those they could. To protect innocents during battles, to sneak supplies into besieged cities and to relay critical information to those whose lives it could save. It worked best when positioned on opposite sides of the war, meeting in secret so that Nicolò could pass on information gleaned from the heart of the Crusader camp. It also gave Nicolò the chance to subtly spread dissent amongst the common soldiers, to convince as many as he could that this was not a war worth fighting.

It had been surprisingly easy for Nicolò to integrate himself into the ranks of the Crusader army. He has had many years of practice after the countless times he and Yusuf had been forced to blend in with a new city without raising suspicion. They lived as chameleons, relying on their skills of deception to remain undetected. Yusuf had done the same, slipping inside the defending army like a ghost and seamlessly sliding into place amongst their ranks.

Nicolò lets his thoughts wander as he slips through the Crusader encampment to the very outer edge. There, he enters his tent, one of thousands in the ragged mess of a camp that has been ravaged by both war and sickness. Once he is inside he settles down to wait, anticipation buzzing in his chest.

It is well after nightfall when a second figure enters, slicing through the canvas on the back wall and slipping through under the cover of darkness.

“ _Yusuf_ ,” Nicolò breathes.

In seconds, his hands are buried in Yusuf’s hair and he is kissing Yusuf deeply. They have been apart for too long and every day separated is a dagger in his chest. It is far too dangerous to meet regularly. Every time they do is a risk, but Nicolò has missed Yusuf so much he would risk anything for this moment.

When they finally break apart, it is with a sigh of disappointment.

“I have missed you,” Yusuf whispers, hands caressing Nicolò’s face.

“And I you,” he murmurs back, feeling his heart seize painfully in his chest. Neither of them has any idea how long this war will last. If they will be separated for weeks, months or years.

“What news?” Yusuf asks, flicking his head towards the Crusader camp that lies beyond the tent.

“Richard of England has finally arrived,” Nicolò replies, not able to keep the worry from his voice. With English troops arriving to assist those already there, Acre’s chances of withstanding the siege are crumbling.

“The soldiers say his fleet numbers a hundred ships. And that is not all. Philip Augustus has finished building his siege engines and word is he wishes to attack the city any day now.”

Nicolò feels no guilt betraying Crusader information. He is not one of them and has not been for a very long time.

Yusuf’s eyebrows furrow together in worry and Nicolò wants to smooth the crease away with his fingertips. He hates being as they are, desperate to save as many people as they can but knowing there are so many more they will fail. It hurts them both, down to the depths of their souls. And it makes Nicolò angry. He has fought this war before, a stupid pointless war where nothing is to be gained and everything is to be lost. Fighting while believing it is the will of God, too blind to see that it is instead the will of greedy, selfish men with hatred in their hearts.

“It feels like nothing we do can be enough,” Yusuf murmurs, eyes filled with sadness. “This war has happened before. It will happen again. Will the cycle never break?”

“Maybe not. But we can still do some good. Even if we only save one life here, it is a life worth saving.” 

“I know.”

Yusuf smiles, leaning in to kiss him again. And it is then that their world comes crashing down around them.

Later, Nicolò will wonder what it was that was their downfall. If they had become too confident, or too careless. Too desperate to see each other and willing to take terrible risks to do it. Or if it was simply bad luck.

All he knows at the time is that one moment he is looking at Yusuf’s smile and the next, vicious hands are grabbing at them both and tearing them apart. Voices sound loud around them as they are dragged from the tent, angry and spiteful. Nicolò tries to fight against the men holding him but he had been distracted and unprepared. A mistake, and a deadly one.

Yusuf is hauled out along with him, writhing in his captor’s grips. Nicolò is proud to see it takes several men to hold him down, and several more are supporting bloody noses and split lips. Even with his hands restrained, Yusuf remains a formidable opponent and it makes affection swell in Nicolò’s chest.

He struggles against the men holding him as well but there are too many of them and his weapons are out of reach. They are dragged through the camp, Yusuf yelling angrily at his captors and Nicolò glaring in silence, wishing nothing but misery on them all. He has a very good idea how this is going to end and suspects it is not going to be a pleasant experience.

Eventually, they are forced to their knees in front of one of the commanders, hands still restrained.

“I told you there was something suspicious about this one,” one of their captors spits. Nicolò feels a hand grip his hair, wrenching his head back to look the commander in the eye.

“We found him consorting with a Saracen warrior, speaking their foul language.”

“Traitor!”

Nicolò winces as he feels a foot connect with his back. It nearly sends him sprawling into the dirt, but the hand in his hair keeps him pinned in place. Next to him, Yusuf makes an outraged sound.

“He is a better man than any of you could ever hope to be.”

The commander looks momentarily surprised at the sound of Yusuf speaking perfect French. Then he shrugs and backhands Yusuf with a casual cruelty that has Nicolò writhing against his captors, desperate to break free.

“Leave him,” he snarls, putting every ounce of cold fury that he feels into his voice.

“You would defend him?” The commander looks shocked. “You would choose a pagan over your own people?”

“He is mine, as I am his.”

“Then you have condemned your own soul.”

Nicolò wants to laugh. There are many things that he has done to warrant damnation, but loving Yusuf has never been one of them.

“You are a traitor and you will be treated as one,” the commander declares, looking down at Nicolò with disdain. “But as I am a man of mercy, I will allow you one final chance at redemption. Repent your sins and renounce this pagan, and we will give you the mercy of the last rites and a decent burial. Do not, and we will throw your body into the desert with the Saracen’s.”

“No. Death means nothing to me as long as he is by my side.”

“Then you will die together.”

The commander motions for one of the soldiers to draw his sword. Next to him, Nicolò can hear Yusuf cursing and fighting as the soldier advances and the guards holding Nicolò shift, forcing his head down. Selfishly, he thinks that he is glad to be the one to die first, so he will not be forced to watch Yusuf face the same fate.

Then the sword falls, and he thinks nothing else at all.

* * *

Nicolò wakes up with a groan.

It takes several long seconds for him to come back to himself. To register the feeling of sand against his back and cool night air on his lips. The memories return last but when they do he jolts up, looking around desperately.

Relief hits him like a hammer to the chest when he sees Yusuf lying sprawled out next to him. Scrambling over to kneel beside the still body, he reaches out, cupping Yusuf’s face in his hands. Yusuf’s eyes flutter open at the touch. At first his gaze is unfocused, then it sharpens as he sees Nicolò crouching above him.

“The view upon waking up almost makes the dying worth it,” he croaks out and Nicolò chokes out a laugh that is at least partly a sob.

“There are many more pleasant ways to wake up to my face than dying,” he replies, helping Yusuf to sit up.

“You make a good point,” Yusuf jokes, then rubs his neck and winces. “And as dying goes, I think being beheaded is one of my least favourite experiences.”

Nicolò touches his own neck too, remembering the brief feeling of a blade slicing through skin before his world had gone black.

“I would not be eager to repeat it,” he agrees.

Yusuf is still gripping him tightly and for all his good humour, Nicolò can see the pain behind his eyes. He does not want to think of what Yusuf saw before his own death. As painful as it was to know that Yusuf was going to die and there was nothing he could do to stop it, he was at least spared actually seeing it happen. Yusuf had been forced to watch.

They sit there for a while, breathing in the night air. Holding each other and being held. It is a long time before either of them are ready to move.

“We should go,” Nicolò says eventually, breaking the silence. It seems they have been dumped far enough away from the Christian camp that they are out of sight, probably under the assumption that their bodies will be devoured by animals or picked apart by birds. But it is not far enough to be safe. There is always the chance of a patrol, or a lone man wandering a little too far from camp.

Yusuf nods, hauling himself to his feet, then holding out a hand to help Nicolò do the same. Nicolò stands, attempting to dust off his shirt with little success. The Crusaders have stripped them both of everything of value, armour, weapons and even boots. They will have to retrieve it all somehow, or else find some way to procure more. And once they do, Nicolò swears to himself, he is going to sneak back into the Crusader camp and take the head of the man who ordered Yusuf’s death.

“Ready to go?” Yusuf asks and Nicolò nods.

Together, they disappear into the night.

* * *

_The older they become, the faster the years begin to pass._

_It takes more years than any other man has in their lifetime before Yusuf convinces Nicolò to return to Genova. He wishes to see the place where the man he loves was born and Nicolò eventually agrees. He has made peace with his past and there are none left there to recognise him. It has been so long that the great-grandchildren of the people he once knew will likely have already found eternal rest._

_But, unbeknownst to them, their arrival in Genova coincides with the arrival of something much more terrible. It is not long before a pestilence is sweeping the land, claiming lives all around them. It spreads across Europe and everywhere they go is filled with the sick and dying. The cemeteries run out of space and bodies are thrown into mass graves, into rivers, or simply left to rot in the houses where they died._

_They try and help where they can. Neither of them are healers, but they learn. They cannot die from the so called Black Death. Their bodies heal as fast as they contract it, the sickness never able to fully take hold. It leaves them fit enough to offer assistance to others, although there is very little they can do against an invisible enemy._

_They are in Milan when they are mistaken for infected, walled up inside an affected household and left there to die. It is then they decide to leave Europe, hoping to find lands spared of the devastation in the East. They travel across the Silk Road but find that seemingly no-where has been spared the touch of the sickness. It is years before it eventually dies out, leaving a devastated world in its wake._

_Their decision to travel to the East is not for naught however. It is there they finally meet the women from their dreams. Andromache and Quynh. More ancient than either of them thought possible. Their few hundred years of life seem like nothing compared to the thousands their new companions have seen._

_In no time at all, Andy and Quynh become family. They are lovers too, just like Nicolò and Yusuf. Together, the four of them travel across the world, fighting side by side. The years change and they change with them, adapting to new centuries as they come. Sometimes they remain together and sometimes they part, but always they return._

_They are apart when Quynh is lost. Neither of them will ever forgive themselves for that._

_They arrive in time to save Andromache, but after that nothing is the same. There is a gaping hole in their lives where Quynh once was. They search for her, scouring the ocean for decades, but there is no sign._

_Quynh is gone._

* * *

** 1710 **

Yusuf breathes in the sea air, feeling the ocean spray fleck his face as he leans against the rails of the ship. The taste of salt on his tongue has become as normal to him as breathing after so many years spent in ports or at sea. They are still searching for Quynh but their hope dwindles with every decade that passes. All those on the original ship are now long dead and there are no new leads as to where Quynh was cast off. They are now searching almost at random, hoping to stumble onto something, _anything_ , to guide them. Yusuf knows that Andromache would spend the rest of her immortal life searching the seabed if she could, but most of the time none of them can even reach the seabed without drowning, let alone search it. They could swim for thousands of years and still find nothing.

The search is almost pointless now. But Andromache will not give up and he and Nicolò will not leave her.

“Joseph.”

He turns at the sound of his name and sees Andromache standing there, short hair ruffling in the breeze. She had hacked off her long locks when Quynh was lost and has not let them grow back since.

“There’s a storm coming.”

Andromache nods her head towards the horizon where storm clouds are indeed brewing.

“Let Nicholas know we’ll need his help to get the sails down before it hits.”

Yusuf glances to where Nicolò, now Nicholas, is sitting in the crow’s nest above them, sharp eyes scanning the horizon for threats. Yusuf has lost count of how many times over the years their names have changed. He has been Joseph for some time now, ever since the years they spent in England searching for the sailors who took Quynh. Andromache became Anne and Nicolò became Nicholas and the names have stuck.

Yusuf swings himself up into the rigging and clambers up to the crow’s nest. Nicolò welcomes him with a smile, shifting to make room for him to slide into the little wooden lookout post. There is barely enough room for two adult men but neither of them care about the close quarters. Ever since Quynh, they have spent as much time as possible touching. Needing the physical reassurance that the other is there. None of them had ever truly considered the possibility of being separated for eternity before. Now, it is all any of them can think about.

“Storm’s coming,” Nicolò murmurs, nodding towards the horizon where dark clouds are forming.

Yusuf nods.

“The captain needs us to help her take the sails down. It won’t be long until it’s here.”

Nicolò makes a noise assent and stretches, joints cracking after so long frozen in one position. He has the keenest eyes of them all and takes the position of lookout more often than not. Yusuf has often admired Nicolò’s patience, able to remain motionless for hours, singularly focused on one task. He personally prefers to move, burning off excess energy by working on deck to keep his hands occupied and his mind calm.

“How has she been today?” Nicolò asks, nodding down towards the deck where Andromache is pacing and barking orders to anyone unlucky enough to get in her way.

“The same as usual.”

They both share a pointed look. Andromache has changed so much in the years since they lost Quynh. She used to be fierce but passionate. Full of life, loud and wild. Her anger flared bright and hot but burned out fast under the soothing coolness of Quynh’s touch. Now she is quiet, her eyes dark and sad. Her anger and resentment are quiet too, but they simmer constantly under the surface. At the world, at destiny, at the long dead men she had carved into pieces for taking Quynh from her side. Life only truly returns to her eyes when the receive a new lead on Quynh’s whereabouts, and those are growing fewer and further between. They have done their best, but Yusuf still fears that they are losing her, a little more each day.

He can’t blame her though. It is painful enough to have lost Quynh, his friend. He doesn’t want to think about what it would be like to lose Nicolò, the other half of his soul, to the same fate. To know that Nicolò is suffering and that there is nothing he can do to stop it. To face down eternity knowing that Nicolò might be lost to him forever, as Quynh is lost to Andromache.

Death would be preferable to that kind of pain.

* * *

When the storm hits, it is worse than any of them expect. Rain lashes the deck, soaking them all to the bone. The howling winds throw freezing sea spray into their faces and threatens to take them off their feet with every gust. Thunder rolls and lightning slashes the sky. The sea roars and roils beneath them, waves taller than the ship itself threatening to skink them with every moment that passes.

Wood creaks and groans all around him as Yusuf struggles his way across the deck. Andromache is shouting orders but the wind whips away her words before they can reach his ears. Nicolò is fighting with the ropes by the main mast, which is swaying dangerously. The whole thing looks ready to fall at any minute, Yusuf thinks. With the run of luck they’ve been having recently, it’s only a matter of time.

A particularly vicious wave rocks the ship and sends him sprawling. He skids across the deck, body hitting the rails with a painful crash. For a long second all his can do is lie there gasping, all the air knocked from his lungs. Faintly he hears a cry and looks up to see Nicolò abandoning the ropes, running to his side.

Nicolò is barely halfway across the deck when another wave hits, this time sending the ship careening in the opposite direction. A wall of water crashes over them all, tossing them about with no remorse. Yusuf can do nothing but watch in horror as the force of the water hurls Nicolò away from him and over the side of the ship into the ocean below.

He doesn’t even need to think about what he does next. As soon as his feet are back under him he is running. The howling wind drowns out Andromache’s words but he can see her shouting at him, eyes wild. But he ignores her, focused only on the place where Nicolò was swept away. He doesn’t pause when he reaches the side of the ship, vaulting over the rails and diving down into the freezing waves below.

* * *

It’s a miracle he manages to find Nicolò in the roiling depths of the ocean.

Yusuf is halfway to death when he finally does, salt water choking his lungs and stinging at his eyes. Nicolò is already limp and pale, sinking down into the crushing depths. It takes all the strength Yusuf has left to drag him back to the surface, forcing his head above the water.

The ocean around them is strewn with detritus torn from the ship and Yusuf reaches for the nearest piece desperately. He almost cries with relief when it doesn’t sink beneath their weight. It is a ragged piece torn from something wooden, barely enough for one person to cling to, let alone two. But it is enough.

When he turns his attention back to Nicolò, the eyes he loves so dearly are still closed. Nicolò’s skin is freezing cold beneath his touch and, when Yusuf presses his ear to Nicolò’s chest to listen desperately for a heartbeat, there is nothing but silence.

“ _Nicolò_ ,” he pleads. “ _Nicolò destati_.”

There is a terribly long moment of stillness. The Nicolò shudders in his arms, eyes flying open as new life floods through him. He gasps for breath, struggling for a few seconds before he realises who is holding him. Yusuf presses their foreheads together, feeling tears join the wetness of the sea on his face.

“ _Sono qui_ ,” Nicolò chokes out, voice raw from the saltwater. “ _I’m here_.”

* * *

It takes hours for the storm to pass. They cling to the paltry section of wood and to each other for what feels like a lifetime as the waves finally settle and the sun begins to cast light on the empty ocean stretching out around them.

“Andromache?” Nicolò asks eventually, tone exhausted after a night of fighting to stay afloat.

“Still on the ship,” Yusuf replies. He looks out at the sea, hoping to see any sign of sails on the horizon but knowing even before he does that there will be nothing. The ocean is huge and the storm could have sent the ship leagues away by the time it finally abated.

“She’ll be looking for us,” he adds, trying to sound reassuring.

“Of course she will,” Nicolò says quietly. “But she may not find us.”

“Then we will just have to find her once we finally wash up on a beach somewhere.”

Nicolò huffs out a laugh.

“It better be a beach somewhere nice,” he jokes. “It would be a great disappointment if we reach land and it turns out we have ended up somewhere unfortunate. Like _France_.”

This time, it’s Yusuf’s turn to laugh.

“I’ll make sure to request the ocean direct us to somewhere more pleasant. Where would you like to go?”

Nicolò hums, looking thoughtful.

“In all our years together, we have never been to Malta. I would like for us to go someday.”

“Malta it is then,” Yusuf agrees.

* * *

They both die on the third day.

Yusuf dies first, succumbing to the heat and the thirst. When he awakens again, Nicolò is holding him tightly, keeping him afloat. It is barely a few hours before he dies too and Yusuf returns the favour, keeping him from sinking until he wakes. After the first time, they use their clothes to tie themselves to each other and their measly scrap of a raft to avoid drifting apart should they both perish at the same time.

After the first few weeks, Yusuf loses track of how many times they die. Sometimes the rains come and the fresh water keeps them alive for a few days at a time. Other times there is nothing but scorching heat, clawing hunger and desperate thirst.

It takes two months for a ship to find them. It is not Andromache, although Yusuf is sure she will still be searching. Instead, it’s a British Navy ship that stumbles across them completely by accident. The sailors seem to accept Nicolò’s hurriedly conceived explanation that they are the last two survivors of a merchant vessel that sank not two days past. Although none of them are pleased by two extra passengers, they are also not cruel enough to throw them back in the ocean. Instead, they allow them to remain until the ship reaches its next port in Jamaica.

From there, he and Nicolò work, barter and beg their way back across the sea to their safehouse in Seville, where they had all agreed to meet should they ever be separated. When they finally arrive, Andromache is waiting for them. She looks worse than Yusuf has ever seen her, bar the day they pulled her from a prison cell without Quynh.

Andromache jumps to her feet when she sees them both. She rushes towards Nicolò first, pulling him into a crushing hug. Then she turns towards Yusuf and punches him so hard across the jaw that he momentarily sees stars. Then, before he can fully recover, she’s pulling him into a hug too, burying her face against his shoulder.

“I thought I had lost you both,” she hisses, holding Yusuf so tightly that he almost can’t breathe. “I thought you were gone like…”

She doesn’t have to say the rest. They both know.

* * *

The next day, Andromache officially calls off the search for Quynh.

She tells them it’s because they have run out of places to search and leads to follow. It is true, but the same had been true decades ago. Both he and Nicolò know the real reason Andromache is willing to finally stop looking, but neither of them voice it aloud.

Yusuf doesn’t regret jumping in after Nicolò and never will. But he does regret how much pain it caused Andromache. He can’t image what the past few months must have been like for her, thinking every member of her family was lost to the sea.

None of them set foot on a ship again for a very long time.

* * *

_Time passes and eventually a new member is added to their family. They all wake simultaneously to the feeling of_ _a coarse rope around their throat and the life being choked out of them. The dream becomes a reoccurring nightmare as the newest immortal dies over and over again at the end of a noose._

_It takes three agonisingly long days for the unknown man to free himself. It is only then that any of them are able to glean anything other than terror and pain from the dreams. From the fragments they all see, they manage to piece together where the man must be and set out for Russia._

_They learn the new immortal’s name is Sebastian and he is not happy to see them. He insists on returning home. To France, to his wife and children. He refuses to change his mind, no matter how many times Andromache warns him of what a terrible idea it is. They can’t stop him so they tell him of a place to meet them should he change his mind and watch him go._

_Forty years later and infinitely sadder, he returns._

_Slowly, he adapts to their life. They continue to travel and fight as the years tick over from the nineteenth century to the twentieth. Andromache becomes Andy, Yusuf becomes Joe and_ _Nicolò becomes Nicky. Joe begins affectionately calling Sebastian ‘Booker’ as a play on his surname, and the nickname sticks._

_Then someone shoots the Archduke of Austria and the entire world goes to hell in a handbasket._

* * *

“Need a light?”

Nicky nods and Booker tosses him the packet of matches before taking a long drag of his own cigarette. Nicky lights his and inhales deeply, feeling the harsh chemical tang of the smoke hit the back of his throat. He had never been particularly fond of tobacco before this war began, but now it is one of the only comforts readily available on the front lines and he’ll take what he can get.

“Any sign of Andy?” he asks between inhales and Booker shakes his head.

“No, but she’ll show up eventually. She always does.”

It is true. It isn’t always easy to stay together in the chaos of battle. This is far from the first time Andy has disappeared into no man's land but she always finds her way back in the end.

“How’s Joe doing,” Booker asks, flicking ash from the tip of his cigarette. To an outsider he would sound entirely too casual, but Nicky knows him too well to be fooled. Booker is worried.

He looks down to where Joe is lying in his lap, eyes closed and chest still. His body is healing, flesh and bones regrowing, but the process is agonizingly slow. It is not the longest any of them have ever taken to come back, but it’s getting close.

“He’s healing,” Nicky replies softly, running one of his hands through Joe’s curls. “Just give him some time.”

He hates the twentieth century and all the new and creative ways people have invented to kill each other. He’d thought it had been bad in the nineteenth when Booker took a cannonball through the chest and had taken a full half an hour to come back to them. But then he and Joe had choked to death on poisonous gas at Ypres, woken up and choked again until they could drag themselves far enough away to stay alive. And now Joe is lying in his lap, body slowly healing from where artillery fire had torn him apart.

“If he takes any longer, he’s going to break my record,” Booker says, but there’s no real humour in his words. Nicky sometimes forgets how young Booker is in comparison to the rest of them. They have had hundreds, or in Andy’s case thousands, of years of experience with war to numb them to some of its horrors. Booker hasn’t.

Booker pulls out his flask and takes a swig before offering it to Nicky. Nicky accepts it, grimacing at the unpleasant burn of the alcohol. He doesn’t know where Booker has procured his latest stash of moonshine but he’s learned not to ask. No matter where they go, Booker always manages to produce some kind of hard liquor. He started drinking when his last son died and he hasn’t stopped since.

It makes Nicky glad that he never had children. He had been too devoted to God, and then to Joe. It wasn’t hard to leave his family behind either when he first discovered his immortality. His mother had died young and he was the youngest son of a distant father. Leaving them to believe he had died in the crusades was far better for them all. Joe had no family to return to either. His family had been long dead when they first met, perishing in the attack on Mahdia when Joe was still a young man. Immortality had given them each other, and they had lost little in return.

It was different for Booker. He rarely speaks of it, but Nicky can see the losses still haunt him even all these years later.

A noise sounds above their trench and both of them grab their rifles. But it’s only Andy, dropping down to greet them with a tired smile. She’s covered from head to toe in mud and Nicky can see several new bullet holes in the front of her shirt.

“Took you long enough,” Booker grunts, although Nicky can see the relief in his eyes.

“Cheerful as always Book,” Andy shoots back, swiping the flask out of Booker’s hands and taking a swig. Then she glances down at Joe.

“Fuck Nicky, what happened?” she asks, crouching down beside him to examine Joe’s injuries closer.

“Artillery fire. He shielded me from the worst of it.”

He doesn’t elaborate and Andy doesn’t ask him to. She knows him too well, knows how much he hates seeing Joe like this and how much he’s blaming himself.

“I hate this century,” Andy grumbles, mimicking Nicky’s thoughts from earlier. “To think there was a time I thought catapults were the worst new invention I’d ever have to deal with.

Nicky offers her a cigarette and she takes it, lighting it with the tip of his own. Together the three of them sit in silent vigil, watching as Joe’s body gradually heals.

Even though he knows it’s coming, it still makes Nicky breathe a sigh of relief when Joe finally takes a shuddering breath.

“You’re safe,” he murmurs as Joe’s eyes open, struggling back to focus. He helps as Joe sits up gently, not willing to let go of him just yet.

“Welcome back you stubborn bastard,” Andy quips, tossing Joe Booker’s rapidly emptying flask. “Hope you enjoyed the nap.”

“Sorry boss,” Joe grins back at her, blood still smeared on his teeth. “Won’t happen again.”

“It better not,” she warns.

All of them know she’s not really talking about the dying. They all die at least once a day in this miserable place. It’s how long Joe took to come back that has shaken them all.

“How long?” Joe asks him quietly later and Nicky just shakes his head. He hadn’t been able to count the minutes, each second that Joe lay dead stretching into eternity.

“Too long.”

That night, he sleeps facing the entrance to their dugout, with Joe tucked safely between his body and the wall and his gun never leaving his hand.

* * *

_The twentieth century passes by in a blur of conflicts, war and death. It seems as soon as one fight finishes, another begins. Revolutions, civil wars, invasions, and even another world war that leaves unprecedented destruction in its wake. Their team of four bounce from country to country, trying to help as many people as they can. They save some but lose others and the losses weigh on them all heavily. Sometimes it feels like they have taken on an impossible task as they try and save lives in a world so ready to deal death._

_By the end of the twentieth century, they are all so tired. They struggle on for nearly two more decades but eventually, Andy calls for a time out. It’s not a surprise. They can all see how much the endless conflict has worn her down. How for every problem they solve there seems to be a hundred more in its place. How she has begun to lose her faith that anything they do can actually make a difference in an indifferent world. She asks for a year and they part with the promise to meet back in Marrakesh a year to the day._

_Andy leaves first, stating her intention to go ‘travelling’ and nothing more. Booker leaves next, equally vague about his intentions and waving Joe and Nicky’s questions off with the promise to see them in a year._

_It is a very long year._

_Both of them are relieved when, true to their word, Booker and Andy return to Marrakesh exactly a year later. Booker brings them a job and they suit up together for a mission like nothing has changed._

_Then everything changes._

_There is Copley’s plan and the discovery of Nile. Nicky and Joe’s capture and Booker’s betrayal. The revelation of Andy’s mortality, which terrifies them all in ways they didn’t know they could still fear. Andy has always been eternal. The oldest of them all, having lived millennia to their centuries. The idea that she will soon be gone seems inconceivable._

_It also throws their own eventual mortality into harsh light. Neither Nicky or Joe ever knew Lykon, never saw one of their own finally take a mortal wound they never recovered from. The concept of their final death has always been abstract. But seeing Andy bleeding and not healing changes everything. Every injury suddenly leaves them wondering if this is it. If this is the one that will fail to heal. If this is the one that kills them for good._

_They all escape Merrick’s labs alive and – aside from Andy – unharmed. But the thoughts remain._

* * *

Joe can’t help but glance around to look at Nicky every few minutes as they drive away from the centre of London. Andy, sitting next to him in the driver’s seat, sees, but doesn’t comment. Nile doesn’t seem to notice, leaning her head back against the seat and looking exhausted as the final evidence of her impromptu dive from a skyscraper heals and disappears. Booker is pointedly not looking at any of them, staring out of the window at the streets of London like his life depends on it.

Nicky is always looking back at him. Whenever Joe turns around, his eyes meet Nicky’s and it sends a flicker of relief through him every time. No matter how clearly he knows that Nicky is there in the car with him, the desperate need to check and make sure refuses to fade. They had come dangerously close to losing each other and the thought is unbearable.

When they finally reach their London safehouse, they all stagger inside with varying levels of exhaustion. Andy immediately collapses on the couch, trying hard to look like her rapid descent into the cushions was entirely a personal choice and not a result of being physically unable to stand up any longer. Booker hangs around the doorway awkwardly and Joe ignores him. Let him stew for a while. It’s the least he deserves. Nile requests a medkit for Andy and Nicky turns to find one. The movement reveals the back of his head, hair still matted and sticky with drying blood and flecks of bone.

Suddenly, Joe is back in Merrick’s tower, choking on gas and watching helplessly as Keane forces his gun into Nicky’s mouth and pulls the trigger. Nicky had lain still for so long, eyes open and frozen in death. Even the memory makes Joe feel physically ill. Remembering how each second that dragged on increased his terror that this was it. That this was the time that Nicky wasn’t coming back. When Nicky gasped awake it was only the adrenaline that stopped Joe from collapsing in relief. But even now, when he can see that Nicky is alive, the fear refuses to leave him.

Andy must read some of the thoughts on his face because as soon as Nicky returns with the medkit she’s shooing the two of them away under the guise that they are disgusting and need a shower. Joe is tempted to point out that they all are, but he knows what Andy is unsubtly trying to do. Nile agrees that they both get first dibs on the shower since they were in captivity the longest and Joe doesn’t argue. Just grabs Nicky by the arm and tugs him out of the room.

They shower together, neither of them willing to be parted for even a few minutes. It’s cramped but Joe doesn’t care. Every place where Nicky’s body is pressed against his is another reminder that they are both here, alive and safe. Nicky seems to be thinking the same thing, hands never leaving Joe’s skin.

The water around them runs red and Joe can hardly bear to look at it. He runs his fingers through Nicky’s hair, working out the blood and letting the painful reminder wash away. He only stops when the water flows clear and there is no trace of death left. Nicky reaches up, catching his hands gently and twining their fingers together.

“It’s ok,” he murmurs into the skin of Joe’s neck as he draws them closer. “I’m here.”

“I thought you were gone,” Joe confesses, the words feeling like shards of glass in his throat. “When you were shot, for a moment I…”

He swallows, feeling his heart clench in his chest at the memory.

“…for a moment I thought I’d lost you.”

Nicky brings one of Joe’s hands up to his lips and kisses the knuckles softly.

“You will never lose me,” he says, voice filled with certainty. He reaches out, cupping Joe’s face between his palms. Joe wants to lose himself in the feeling, to stay in the warmth of Nicky’s embrace and never leave.

“We entered this immortal life together. We are meant to be together,” Nicky says with absolute conviction. “And if we die, we die together, or not at all.”

**Author's Note:**

> Come find me on [tumblr](http://kazliin.tumblr.com/) for more screaming about The Old Guard!
> 
> Also, I am neither Muslim or Catholic so please let me know if I have made any mistakes while writing about these religions


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